Google I/O 2013: Everything You Need to Know

If you weren't one of the 6 million people who tuned in to YouTube to watch the Google I/O 2013 keynote on Wednesday, don't sweat it, you've come to the right place for an extensive recap of all the big announcements. Some of it you may have already read about here on Maximum PC, such as Google partnering with Samsung to offer a totally clean version of the Galaxy S4 complete with an unlocked bootloader or the introduction of an All Access music service, but we also have some new stuff to share.

Technically the event is still going on -- it's a three-day event -- and while the news keeps pouring in, a lot of what's now being revealed are product statistics and minor software updates, like Heat Maps and Symbols being added to the Google Maps API -- not exactly 'knock-your-socks-off' news. There's plenty of interesting tidbits to share, however, so let's get started!

Android's Ascension

From humble beginnings as an operating system that was originally developed for digital cameras, Android over the past decade has grown into the most popular mobile OS in the world. Just how popular is the open source platform? Google revealed rather early in its opening keynote that Android is now installed on 900 million devices.

"There are over 7 billion people on this planet, so we have a long way to go and we think the journey is just getting started," Google's Sundar Pichai quipped on stage.

What's interesting about Android's dominance in mobile is that it's only scratched the surface of available users. While Pichai may have been semi-joking about getting Android devices into the hands of 7 billion people, Android's penetration in most territories around the world is less than 10 percent, albeit "growing very, very fast."

Underscoring Android's popularity is the number of app downloads to date, which Google pegs at 48 billion. To put that number into perspective, consider that it's just 2 billion shy of Apple, which recently announced 50 billion iOS app downloads.

In just the last month alone, Android users have installed 2.5 billion apps. Beyond bragging rights, all these numbers translate into revenue for developers, who have been paid more money in the last four months than in all of last year. The revenue per user is up 2.5x what it was a year ago. Not too shabby.

Google announced a bunch of new APIs for Android developers as part of a robust update to its Google Play services, including three new Android location-based tools. They are:

A low-power location mode that uses less than 1 percent of battery life per hour.

Geofenching: Lets you define virtual fences around geographic areas, which are triggered when a user enters or exits any of them. Developers can have 100 simultaneous geofences active per app.

Activity Recognition: Uses accelerometer data to determine whether a user is walking, cycling, or riding without tapping into the battery-sucking GPS.

Another new API is one that allows for cross-platform single sign-ons with Google+. The benefit for users is that they don't have to sign into apps separately on different devices, so if you open an app using your Google+ account, you're logged in whether you fire it up on the web, on your smartphone, or with your Android tablet.

Leveling Up Google Play

You'll notice some changes to Google Play over the course of the next few weeks. Google's putting a much bigger focus on movie, music, and book recommendations based on the content you consume and what items prompt your friends to mash the +1 button.

Google Play will also do a better job adapting to whichever device you're using. The same content will be available whether you're viewing Google Play on your notebook's browser or your tablet, but it will be presented differently on each to take advantage of the different form factors.

Google Gets Into Streaming Music

Okay, enough with the APIs, backend infrastructure, and UI enhancements, let's get to the fun stuff. One of the big announcements Google made was its new All Access streaming music service. This is the next logical step in the evolution of Google's foray into music, which began with it offering an online locker for users to upload 20,000 songs of their own that could then be streamed to multiple devices. After that, Google launched a music store, and now this.

For a monthly fee (normally $9.99, though if you sign up by June 30, it's $7.99), you can tap into Google's catalog of millions of songs, but it's more than just that. There are curated playlists by Google's expert music editors and 22 top level genres to sift through, with more to drill into. Best of all, you can immediately start playing anything you see in All Access, as nothing is grayed out.

There's quite a bit of fine grain control, too. Anything you listen to can be turned into a radio station. If you're curious about what the unseen DJ has picked out, you can take a look at the playlist and swipe away any songs you don't want to hear, You can also rearrange the order of songs in your queue.

All Access offers the same features across multiple devices. It's available now with a 30-day free trial.

Samsung Galaxy S4 as You've Always Wanted It (Unlocked)

The other big reveal is the one we talked about at the beginning. Coming soon to Google Play is a special version of Samsung's Galaxy S4 device. Unlike the one that's currently available, this one will ship with an unlocked bootloader. it will also feature a squeaky clean version of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, delivering the same software experience that Google ships on its Nexus devices.

Like the Nexus line, this version of the Galaxy S4 will receive Android upgrades "promptly" with every system platform update, which means no more waiting around for weeks and months for your device maker and wireless carrier to get on the ball with the latest version of Android. Speaking of which, it will work on both AT&T and T-Mobile.

That's the good news. And the bad? Well, it's going to cost a whopping $649 when it becomes available starting June 26.

Chrome Dominates the Web

As far as Google is concerned, the various versions of Chrome collectively add up to the most used browser on the planet. It's added 300 million active users in the past 12 months, giving it a userbase that's now over 750 million strong, and climbing. Many of those new users are accessing Chrome on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

If those numbers are even remotely accurate, it's easy to see why Google is sticking with its Chromebook platform, which runs the company's Chrome OS. Providing further incentive to push Chromebooks onto the masses is data from Amazon that shows the $249 Samsung Chromebook as being the No. 1 selling laptop for 199 consecutive days.

"It's an ecosystem play and we have many more partners joining our journey," Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pinchai added.

Comments

just before I looked at the paycheck ov $9670, I have faith ...that...my sister actualy making money in their spare time at there computar.. there uncle has done this less than fifteen months and by now cleared the mortgage on their condo and bought a gorgeous opel. we looked here, Bow6.com

I don't care about Google play to have anything to do with social anything. All I want is for it to have much better filters/categorization, like Amazon. I hate that everything is all together. If I want to look for strategy games, show me strategy games! Right now there are like 8 categories without any subcategories, and those categories don't even make sense... "Live Wallpaper" under "Games"? No "Strategy" or "RPG"? It really sucks, I never go to Google play since every time I've tried to browse through it, it's been a frustrating experience.

I forgot about Google+ - is that still on the map as far as social networking goes?

And if the saying is true about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, Microsoft must be feeling a lot of love. Google, in my opinion, is trying to do too many things and BE too many things to too many people. They have so many products, nothing really distinguishes their brand other than Android and even then, I bet only more tech savvy people know that Android is a product of Google.

It should be obvious that Google wants to own content delivery at this point. You may think they have their hands in too many pots, but they're actually all the right pots for what Google wants to do. I think they have a long term strategy, and will eventually be the preeminent provider of just about any kind of content on just about any device. Wait 10 years and tell me I'm wrong.

Not only is Google + around, it seems like the company is going double down on it, adding a bunch of features.

And they do have a lot of products and you could argue that they have too many hands in to many different pots (errr....I believe the saying is something like that...), it did close Google reader in order to refocus, or so they say.

Thanks for the reply because my question about whether anyone was using it was legit! I guess it must be doing better than I thought... I just NEVER hear anyone say, "Hey, I got these pictures on my Google+, check them out" or even on commercials that use the "follow us on "

And I think the saying is, too many hands in the pot or too many chefs in the kitchen :)